Press Release – October 16, 2019
This Thursday, October 17 at 1pm, MLA Lisa Roberts will present to the Nova Scotia Legislature a petition from the Halifax Coalition to Ban Street Checks.
Over the summer the Coalition has been out talking to people in Halifax about the practice of street checks. In a relatively short period of time, we collected close to 6000 signatures.
We discovered that many people in Halifax are well versed on the subject and completely aware of both police overreach and racial profiling. People are also acutely aware and frustrated at the continued racism and denying of racism that has been defining Halifax for too long.
Key Points
• Street checks have been found, in multiple reports, to be racist and disproportionately targeted towards Nova Scotians of African descent.
• As white citizens of Halifax, we stand in solidarity with our friends, neighbours, and fellow citi- zens in the African Nova Scotian communities who are targeted and harmed by this practice.
• All street checks are an overreach of police power, possibly illegal, and affect every person.
• New policies and procedures must be enacted to ensure all street checks, including racially based street checks, are stopped. There are ample studies and knowledge on how this can be done without affecting the ability for police to be able to conduct their work.
• Minister Furey has not been meeting in good faith with the African Nova Scotian community. This is a gross act of disrespect.
• Minister Furey has the power to address the issues of street checks, to right a wrong, and to ensure through actionable legislation with accountable measures, that the Halifax Police De- partment conducts its work legally, ethically, and without racial profiling.
• In any healthy democracy there must be proper oversight of Police.
• Street checks must be banned.
Contact – Nancy Hunter nhunter@eastlink.ca – Joanne Bealy – jbealy@gmail.com
